Clark: Hold on tight to final seasons of ‘Justified’

Timothy Olyphant will hang up his trademark white hat next year as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens.

Olyphant’s FX network drama “Justified” will end its critically acclaimed run in 2015, with its sixth season. The decision, according to wire reports, was made by executive producer Graham Yost and Olyphant himself.

According to a Contra Costa Times story, FX Networks CEO John Landgraf confirmed the decision last week at the Television Critics Association press tour.

“I would have liked to have had more ‘Justified,’ it’s one of my favorite shows,” Landgraf said in the Times story. “We talked about it a year ago. They felt that the arc of the show, and what they had to say, would be best served by six seasons instead of seven,” he said. “Regretfully, I accepted their decision.”

Regretfully, indeed. “Justified” is one of my favorite shows, too. And the best show on TV right now.

Olyphant isn’t just a TV actor, he’s made several films and has a comedy coming out later this year. “This is Where I Leave You” opens in theaters in September and is about a nonpracticing Jewish family forced to join in Shiva together as their father’s final wish.

According to IMDB.com, Olyphant also is rumored to being starring in “Bone Tomahawk,” a Western/horror film set for 2015 release.

Mantecan takes prize

If you watch enough reality/competition cooking shows on television – ahem – you often see familiar faces pop up on multiple shows.

There have been several “Top Chef” competitors who have tried their skills on other shows such as “Iron Chef America,” “Next Iron Chef” and others, for instance.

The latest “Top Chef” alum to recently pop up was Stockton resident and Manteca chef Michael Midgley, who competed on Food Network’s new competition show, “Cutthroat Kitchen.” And the regional guy who stayed a respectable time on “Top Chef” but did not make the final cut took home the big prize on his latest competitive cooking venture.

“Cutthroat Kitchen” is a show I likely would never have started watching if it wasn’t hosted by Alton Brown. There’s something so annoyingly appealing about this overly intelligent foodie, it’s hard to not like the guy.

On “Cutthroat Kitchen,” four chefs start out with $25,000 each and a dish to prepare. They gather their ingredients from the set’s pantry and get ready to cook. Then Brown brings in the sabotages – two or three items the chefs use their seed money to bid on to inflict upon their fellow chefs. There are three rounds and the chef left standing gets to keep whatever is left of that $25,000.

For example, in the Jan. 12 episode featuring Midgley, contestants bid on things such as forcing a chef to either use a canned chicken or give up 15 of their 30 minutes of cooking time to make chicken Parmesan. Midgley was inflicted with this sabotage and chose the loss of time. In the second round, he had to share cooking tools with another chef and make summer rolls with broken rice wrappers. In the final round, he had to do all of his cooking using a teeny-tiny, child-size kitchen.

Despite all that, Midgley, chef at Ernie’s Food and Spirits in Manteca, won and took home $15,500, money he said on the show that he’d use to take his daughter to her favorite amusement park.

Renner joins award grab

Modesto native and two-time Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner hasn’t been nominated for his role in the much-heralded “American Hustle,” but he got a piece of the award-season love when at last weekend’s Screen Actors Guild awards, the film won honors for outstanding performance by a cast. Renner joined his cast mates on stage in Los Angeles on Saturday to accept the award, the SAG equivalent of best film.

In “Hustle,” Renner plays Camden, N.J., mayor Carmine Polito, who is targeted in an FBI sting of corrupt politicians in the 1970s. The movie is loosely based on the real-life Abscam investigation of Congress and is a favorite to take home the best-picture trophy when the Academy Awards are handed out March 2.